


The Longest Mile, The Tallest Order

by RZZMG



Series: Weasley het couple stories [14]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 16 is legal age of consent in Britain, Abuse by Death Eater teacher (sexual nature-off screen), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Drama, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Prejudice, Coming of Age, Disillusioned!Ginny, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Explicit Language, F/M, Friendship, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, I did mention the point of this fest is tons of angst right? Expect it, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Loss of Virginity, Magical Vows, Non-Consensual Touching, Oral Sex (off screen), Pranking, Quidditch, References to BDSM fun (consensual - off screen), References to a Death Eater teacher choking a student, References to physical abuse, Regrets, Reluctant Order Member!Blaise, Romantic Comedy, Virgin!Blaise, War, War violence, face smacking, head canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:54:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 15
Words: 20,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24792673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RZZMG/pseuds/RZZMG
Summary: “This world keeps spinning faster into a new disaster, so I run.”A coming-of-age story about Ginny Weasley: what and who she values and why, who she is deep down inside...and who she loves. Will it be Dean Thomas, Harry Potter, or the least likely person in the world—her Slytherin rival, Blaise Zabini?
Relationships: Dean Thomas/Ginny Weasley, Ginny Weasley/Blaise Zabini, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley
Series: Weasley het couple stories [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/332635
Comments: 34
Kudos: 26
Collections: SOA Fest 2020





	1. March, 1997

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smirkingcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smirkingcat/gifts).



> This is my 2020 HP-ShoreOfAngst Fest piece.
> 
> Self-prompt - a Ginny coming of age tale with multiple pairing possibilities  
> Timeline: Hogwarts-Final Year of War (1997-1998)  
> Content/Warning(s): Tall Ginny (I’m envisioning her around 5’9”-5’10” in this fic), enemies to friends to lovers plot, explicit profanity, blood prejudice, references to pedophiliac behavior from a Carrow, references to sex (off-screen) - Ginny is 16 (not underage in Britain, but warning for it anyway, just in case), angst all over the place, and head canon using novel references up until the end of the war. BUT….it’s A/U-EWE and a happy ending (sorry, I just couldn’t pull off a tragedy given the current state of the world. I needed a win for someone. I hope you’ll forgive me, angst-lovers!).
> 
> Thank you to the Fest Mod, “smirkingcat” for running this fun fest once more and for kindly offering me TWO extensions so I could better round-out the tale! I truly appreciate it!
> 
> Disclaimer: Summary quote from “I Run To You” by Lady Antebellum, copyright Capitol Nashville/Parlophone. Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

* * *

**March, 1997**

“Good play, Weasley. Congratulations on the win.”

Ginny stopped in her rush to reach the Hospital Wing and find out how Harry was doing to find her greatest Quidditch rival, Blaise Zabini, star Chaser for the Slytherin team two years in a row, hovering near the exit of the Gryffindor locker room. Apparently, he’d been waiting for her…and had just saluted her on taking charge and helping her divided team pull off the win against Hufflepuff earlier, despite Harry’s skull fracture.

Right. That wasn’t weird at all.

Especially as she and Zabini hadn’t two words to say to each other all these years, either on or off the pitch, that hadn’t been somewhat combative.

Well, except for that one time at Sluggie’s Christmas bash…

“Chasing after a Quaffle may be more exciting, but you’ve got a Seeker’s eye for this game,” he continued, when it was apparent she wasn’t sure how to reply to his praise. “Your strength is strategy. You should be Captain, not running second string to Potter.”

Unsure how to take the unexpected recognition that she’d been waiting for _someone_ to give her just once in her life—especially from him, a boy who would rather body check her into a pole at high flying speeds than talk to her—she merely thanked Zabini with a quick nod and hurried past. Harry had been injured, knocked unconscious during the game and was in a bad way, and she had to get to the Hospital Wing to see him.

-Not that trauma wasn’t a common occurrence where Harry was concerned. Everything was in crisis around him, really.

“Running from me again, I see,” Zabini called the challenge to her retreating back, and the taunt was like lead weights in her shoes, unable to be ignored no matter the conditions.

Ginny came to a screeching halt and turned to face him.

“Running? No, why would I?”

“That’s the question now, isn’t it?”

Okay, _yes,_ if she didn’t get to Harry’s side in the next five minutes, it wasn’t as if he would die, so why was she hurrying? Madam Pomfrey was treating him with the greatest care, so Ginny needn’t worry that he wouldn’t recover. Accidents happened all the time around this place, especially to him.

Yes, _alright,_ so Ron and Hermione were with him so he wouldn’t be alone when he woke up, either, so it wasn’t as if he didn’t have a support team on stand-by.

Alright, _fine,_ Dean was waiting for her back at the common room, too. It would make sense to choose him over Harry, since Dean was her current boyfriend, right?

Still…

Zabini was right. Part of why she wanted to leave so quickly was to avoid a confrontation with the Slytherin. He had a bad habit of leaving her frustrated and discombobulated in the aftermath of every confrontation they’d had for years. Something about the man set her nerves on edge and her blood to boiling.

This time was no different. Already, she could feel the sweat gather at the nape of her neck as she turned for the inevitable clash they were about to have.

“Maybe it’s because your lot is an untrustworthy bunch of snakes,” she hissed at him. “Besides, the last time we tried this talking civilly thing, it was during Slughorn’s party, remember? That didn’t end so well, as I recall.”

Her rival’s casual repose against the outer wall of the locker room was abruptly abandoned at the reminder of Harry riding to her rescue that night, of his interrupting Zabini slithering out of the shadows to appear at her side to offer her something a wee bit stronger than pumpkin juice to drink. Standing to his full height before her now, which towered over most others their age and was more than a match for Ron’s brawny frame, Ginny found his height to be a bit…intimidating, even for a woman with her Amazonian stature.

Blood. Boiling.

“Potter wasn’t your date that night, and yet you allowed him to lead you around as one,” he pointed out.

How dare he insinuate-!

“Harry’s my f-friend,” she stammered over the title, knowing it was a bit more than that on her side. But was it on Harry’s? She could never be sure with him anymore. He flitted from one worry to the next, as impulsive and moody as a Crup during the mating season. One minute he seemed jealous of her and Dean, the next…like he was too preoccupied with other issues to even observe she was there. It was as if he noticed her only because she was Ron’s little sister most days, conveniently placed in his path for his use, not because he actually wanted her. Talk about your mixed signals! The wishy-washy thing was even more frustrating than dealing with Zabini, honestly. “And I didn’t let him lead me around anywhere!”

Zabini huffed, cynically. “Just friends? No, I think not. It’s obviously a bit more than that, at least on your side.” He glanced down at the red and gold painted gravel beneath his feet and gently kicked at it, his expression softening. “You’d never run from Perfect Harry Potter, would you? No, him you run _to._ Always.”

A part of her hated admitting he wasn’t wrong. That’s what she was doing now, right?—running after Harry, like some starry-eyed little girl begging for even a nod of his attention when he woke up and found her standing loyally by his side.

Maybe she’d just go back to the Gryffindor common room to celebrate the team win with Dean instead. By now the party would be in full swing, and surely Ron and Hermione had things well in hand in the Hospital Wing. They’d alert the others if things took a turn. Besides, Dean _was_ her boyfriend, technically, even if they had been doing a lot of fighting lately. It would be disrespectful to that ‘relationship’ to keep blowing him off in favour of a possible-maybe-very unlikely romantic rival.

But really, she wasn’t going to stand here and explain her actions or justify her feelings to anyone, least of all to a member of a rival Quidditch team _and_ House.

Zabini could take a giant leap off a tall tower, as far as she was concerned.

“Not today,” she told him, and without further ado, marched away towards the castle and up into the seventh floor landing, bypassing the fourth floor and the Hospital Wing in the doing.

Two hours later, she and Dean had spent a wasteful amount of time arguing over McLaggen’s dirty attempt to get revenge on Harry for benching him as a second string player on the team. She’d blown up at her boyfriend’s sniggering over the Bludger Harry had taken to the head, and accused him of disloyalty to a fellow Gryffindor and teammate.

He’d accused her of still carrying a torch for her first flame.

In the end, she’d left him to run to Harry’s side in the Hospital Wing.

She’d done exactly as Zabini had predicted.

* * *

When she was later asked by her girlfriends, she would tell them that Dean hadn’t pressured her…and that would be the truth. What they’d gotten up to in a broom cupboard on the third floor on a Sunday afternoon two weeks after her Hufflepuff win had been a spur of the moment decision based mostly on curiosity on her side and more than a little encouragement on his.

As she stood and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, Ginny could now say unequivocally that she knew all she wanted to know about being on her knees for a boy: it was gross and she was never doing it again.

Dean was slumped against the wall, panting and limp. He looked well-sated.

She felt sick her to her stomach.

A few curt words exchanged between them— _she couldn’t recall what had been said, exactly, as she’d been too busy trying to keep the contents of her stomach in_ —and then she was rushing out into the empty corridor and hurrying down to the second floor’s loo. Throwing open the door, she hurried for the nearest stall and bent over, emptying her belly into the toilet. Tears poured from her eyes as she vomited her guts up.

Minutes later, shaking like a leaf in the wind, she emerged from the stall and headed for the sinks to rinse her mouth out and wash her face. It took longer to compose her nerves.

The romance novels had lied. There’d been nothing sexy about what she’d just done, and the taste... The thought made her go green and flush with the need for a second round of ‘bog bowl fever’. Splashing more cold water on her face helped. So did transfiguring a hand towel into a toothbrush and rinsing her mouth, thoroughly.

An hour later, she emerged to find Zabini leaning against the opposite wall.

“Saw you run in there looking like you were going to be sick,” he admitted. “From the awful sounds you made, seems I was right.”

In no mood for his games, she snapped at him. “Don’t you have anything better to do than stalk me?”

He shrugged. “It’s Sunday. No one around this place has anything better to do than homework or to spy on their enemies today. Except maybe your friend, Granger, who uses any excuse to work out her brain.”

“What is it with you Slytherins bothering Gryffindor girls? It’s like you’re all obsessed with us or something.”

Blaise wisely kept his mouth closed, she noticed.

“Go bother a witch from your own House, will you?” she said with a shooing motion, and turned to go. “I’m sure they’d love to fawn all over your money.”

“And that’s precisely why I avoid them.”

She snorted, not feeling the least bit sympathetic for his plight.

“I thought ‘ambition towards enriching’ was Slytherin’s motto.” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You’re telling me it’s now, what, a burden to getting laid by someone of ‘quality’?”

He fell into step beside her as she attempted to shake him by walking up two flights of stairs. “I’m saying it’s not really sexy to know a witch wants you for the size of your inheritance…and I don’t mean the one in your trousers.”

“Your life is _hard,_ Zabini…so much more than that thing between your legs, clearly.”

Despite her best efforts, he doggedly pursued her up the stairs as she kept going past the fourth floor landing, then the fifth.

“How would you know?” he asked, clearly enjoying this game of chase they were on, “unless you’ve been staring at my crotch, Weasley?”

Damn, now she had to play for reals, because that was a gauntlet thrown, if she’d ever heard one, and not answering him would be to admit cowardice in the face of such a provocative question. “No need. Moaning Myrtle catches all the girls up on the size comparisons every year,” she lied with a straight face. “Why do you think she hangs around the loos all day long? She’s obsessed with cock.”

She’d taken three more steps before realising he’d stopped cold on the steps below.

He stared up at her not with astonishment, as she’d expected, but amusement. “I like that you’re a liar,” he said around a shark-like grin that had her pushing goose pimples. “That you have a dirty mouth, too? I think I may be in love, Red.”

“What will Tracey Davis think,” she replied, unfazed by his fake declaration. “Just last week she was eye-fucking you like a pillow mint, if I recall correctly.”

“Noticed her interest, did you? Now who’s the one stalking?”

They bickered all the rest way up to her common room portrait about his tragic inability to get a girl to suck him off, and miracle of miracles, the banter did wonders for making Ginny forget all about her bad experience earlier that day. When she finally went into her tower, it was with a smile and feeling years lighter.


	2. April, 1997

* * *

**April, 1997**

What was it with Zabini these days?

The boy’s eyes followed Ginny every way she turned, and despite his cold demeanour towards others, whenever they connected, his gaze softened just a teensy bit.

It was…disconcerting, to say the least. He was her enemy, a slimy, no good Slytherin who’d called her and her family members ‘blood traitor’ on more than one occasion in the past. They’d never had a civil word to say to each other, really, not even the last time they’d spoken.

Argued.

Whatever.

The point was they’d never gotten on.

It was _his_ fault, of course. The first time they’d actually been ‘introduced’ during her second year, when she’d been trailing after Harry during one of his infamous run-ins with Draco Malfoy and his gang, Zabini had been there. He’d taken one look at her and commented negatively on her freckles, stating that no pure-blood lady of breeding would dare step into the sunlight without a Bonnet charm above her to ward off the burning rays. He’d called her ‘pedestrian’ and insinuated she needed classes in manners, not just charms, as she’d spit back at him some scathing comment about his wiry hair.

On an aside, it had given her infinite pleasure to note that the next time she’d seen him, he’d shaved his head so close to the scalp, there was absolutely no curl left to it. He’d kept it exactly the same ever since.

In short, Blaise Zabini wasn’t supposed to act anything but disdainful towards her, and she wasn’t supposed to care, either way. 

So why wouldn’t he stop staring at her now? Was this a new game?

Or had he been watching her for longer than this, but she’d just never noticed until now? Was that how he’d known about her unconscious reactions to Harry? His comments weeks earlier had haunted her thoughts since that particular exchange.

_“Just friends? No, I think not. It’s obviously a bit more than that, at least on your side.”_

The only way he could have guessed that was if he’d been observing her for a while. But why would he? Was it to find a weakness on Harry that he could divulge to his dark wizarding friends? He and Malfoy, both, had been acting squirrely this year. Were they, as Harry had guessed, both working for the Dark Lord on some secret mission this year?

Whatever the cause, it was strange and unnerving…and perhaps that was his game—to demoralize her and keep her on edge. Maybe that was his task for his ‘master’?

If only she knew what he was thinking!

The only way to accomplish that would be to risk allowing him closer. For Harry, though, she could do that.

* * *

She found Zabini in Hogsmeade on a Saturday, wandering from store to store, and thought it the perfect excuse for an ‘accidental run-in’. If she pretended a friendlier front, perhaps she could glean his true intentions.

He was in Spintwitches Sporting Needs, considering various broom polishing kits as she approached.

“Thought you were more the type to buy some locally-sourced Italian beeswax presented in a gold bottle with diamond accents,” she opened the conversation. Joking was, she’d found, the best way to get someone to drop their defences. George and Fred had taught her that lesson well.

Zabini shrugged, not only unfazed by her sudden appearance at his elbow, as if he’d known she was there waiting for her chance to approach, but also seemingly amused by her jab at his long-established snobbery.

“I asked. They’re all out,” he replied with a faked suffering sigh. “We don’t always get what we want in this life, Red, but sometimes the alternatives turn out to be better. We just have to be open to them.”

“Ah.”

Now what?

Her mind groped for a topic in the awkward silence that descended before eventually realising she’d already created the perfect opportunity, without even recognizing it…

“Speaking of fancy bottles, what was in that flask you offered me at Sluggie’s party?”

There, that seemed an interesting enough topic to delve into—a shared past experience. She had, after all, been curious for the past several months. Had it been a drink laced with Amortentia or a Sleeping Draught, as she’d always suspected? Would he tell her even if it had been?

Probably not.

He eyed her sideways from beneath his lashes, as if weighing how to respond. Finally he settled upon, “Wine from my family’s estates in Italy. Top shelf. It’s all I’ll drink on special occasions.”

Ironically, Ginny believed he was telling the truth. He did, after all, seem to be the type to sniff corks rather than take from a tap.

As he swiftly reached into his robes, Ginny stepped away and tightened her hold around her wand, every alarm in her head going off at once. After last year’s fiasco in the Department of Mysteries, she’d found she was much quicker to react to potential threats, ready to counter them at a moment’s notice. It’s why her Quidditch game had upped over the last year, too. Moody had drilled into her ‘constant vigilance’ last summer for that one week he’d appeared at the Burrow. The lessons had stuck after seeing Hermione so sick from Dolohov’s curse.

Zabini made the universal hand signal for, _‘Keep calm. I’m not reaching for something explosive”_ and slowly continued rummaging around inside a pocket tucked against his chest. When his hand reappeared again, it was holding that same hip flask from the party.

“Want to try some now?”

Ginny glanced around nervously, noticing the only store employee in the shop was currently at the register ringing up someone else and not paying a lick of attention to them.

Her eyes returned to the flask in his hand. “You successfully pull with lines as simple as that, do you?” she teased, and nudged her chin towards the bootleg item in his hand. “Love Potion, am I right?”

He tossed her a disappointed frown, then unscrewed the lid and tossed back the contents into his mouth, right there in public. “Nebbiolo from Gattinara,” he told her when he’d finished swallowing, and although she had no idea what any of that meant, the way he spoke his native Italian to her had Ginny’s skin pebbling with arousal. It was the Latin accent. “It’s a type of red varietal grown in my home’s region.”

He held the flask out to her again.

“You’ve never had finer, I promise.”

She huffed and puffed at the claim’s absurdity, but she also had to admit that her curiosity was piqued.

The flask shone bright silver in the sunlight peeking in through the window nearby…and suddenly, his offer represented defiance and independence.

Back home, she’d never been allowed to sample alcoholic beverages; her mother had forbidden it to anyone underage. That taboo had always struck her as somewhat unfairly skewed, though, given the fact that at seventeen, the twins certainly hadn’t seemed mature enough to drink hooch. And Ron had reached seventeen less than two months ago, and she knew he certainly wasn’t emotionally or mentally evolved enough to drink and not souse himself.

What was the harm? She was almost sixteen, not some pip of ten still growing into her pants, and she’d just led the match against Hufflepuff. In reality, this had been _her_ win as she’d been pulling all the slack for team practices since Harry had been busy with Snape’s lessons. It had been her plays they’d used on the board. 

Just a sip. What could it hurt? She was adult enough to handle it.

Her hesitation allowed Zabini another swipe at her pride. “Ah, too grown up for you, then?” He made to cap the hip flask and put it back where it had come from, inside his pocket. “Go on then, run along with the other children-”

“Give it here,” she commanded, shutting him down and holding out her hand.

He did and she uncapped it to take a sip.

It was sharp and tart, like… “Cherries,” she said, and tried a bit more. “Not bad.”

He took the flask back when she was done, closed it up, and hid it away inside his robes. “Not spiked, either.”

True, love potions always tasted like ripe summer melon, honey apples, or sweet peaches. She should know, having consensually toyed with them a time or two with Dean.

Thoughts of her ex- had her frowning quite suddenly. The git had picked another fight with her today, and they weren’t even together anymore!

“I know that look. Thomas being a wanker again?” Zabini surmised.

…And that brought her back to her purpose for having approached him from the start: she was trying to guess why he was so interested in watching her all the time, suspecting it had something to do with Voldemort. Because, really, why else would he bother? Being a Weasley was an ‘in’ the Dark Lord could use to get at Harry.

She turned to the polishing kits he’d been contemplating earlier and picked up a small tin of broom wax, turning it over in her hands without really giving it any real attention. It was just a prop to keep her there, after all.

“We…broke up,” she offered, hoping the information would be a way to win his trust.

It definitely aroused his interest.

“Really?”

Why did he sound as if he wanted to suddenly jump for joy? Maybe he was just having fun at her misery. That would be something his lot would do.

“He laughed at Harry’s injury after the last game.”

“Ah.”

Now he sounded a bit less enthusiastic.

Strange.

“Yeah, he’s a wanker,” she agreed, setting the wax back down in its original position on the shelf. “Always treating me with kid gloves, as if I’m some damsel in distress in need of a White Knight’s saving. It was…exhausting. And sexist.”

Zabini seemed to consider that, picking up the same tin of wax she’d just set aside. Like her, he seemed less interested in the item, more in using it as an excuse to stay put.

“You don’t need a White Knight,” he said in a low, dark whisper, lips curling in amusement at the thought. “You need a real friend.”

“I have friends.”

His eyes met hers as he spoke, making things low in her belly begin to flutter. “I said a _real_ friend, one who accepts you.”

“My friends accept me!”

“Do they?” he asked, and it was obvious he’d meant that rhetorically. “Do they treat you as an equal and respect your decisions to be as valuable as their own? Do they appreciate you for who you are and not just for what you can give them?”

“They-”

…mostly didn’t.

Okay, _so_ , it was possible her friends underestimated her abilities. They thought her good for a few offensive hexes here and there, especially when directed at Slytherins, but there was a whole depth to her magic that they completely ignored, like her skills at magical eavesdropping and the ability to cast a pretty seamless Disillusionment charm, and that she could brew some potions even better than Hermione, thanks to special instruction from the twins. As the only girl in a house full of boys growing up, and especially with the twins for brothers, she’d learned some impressive talents in covert operations and strategy, if she did say so. Yet, Harry hadn’t asked her to use much of that talent outside of dodging Umbridge…the same order he’d given everyone else. It was a bit frustrating, honestly.

So, _alright_ , whenever there was danger, if she got tapped to help stop it, it was usually because it had been a group invite and she’d been present for the request. She’d never actually been selected for a shenanigan on the basis of her particular merits. She guessed that had something to do with the fiasco involving that cursed diary in her first year and how everyone still framed her as some easy target for evil thugs looking for a victim. That was also a shade irritating.

And alright, _fine,_ she could see his point about how she was still sitting at the kid’s table for most of the ‘adult’ discussions regarding the coming war and Voldemort, despite the fact she’d gotten some real-time experience under her belt in the fight in the Department of Mysteries…and had held her own quite nicely, too.

Still…

“It’s a hard lesson to learn, but a real friend runs _with_ you and _for_ you. They don’t bench you,” Zabini continued, hammering away at the truth she’d spent years brushing off as inconsequential, but now in retrospect, seemed incredibly important. He set the tin down absently on a nearby shelf and stepped closer to her, until they were barely a breath apart. Their heights, she noted, were perfect for each other…if they’d been inclined to be something more than adversaries. “And they’re intimate enough to know your darkest secrets…the monstrous desires everyone hides well under their faces. That creature doesn’t scare off a real friend. Can you say anyone in your circle knows you, _accepts_ you like that, Red?”

How dare him! Who did he think he was to say such things to her, anyway? Who cared if he was right? He still didn’t know her friends at all!

“So what? They might not know that side of me-” she began to argue again.

“No,” he told her firmly, “they really don’t. You hide her well…except to those on the receiving end of your fury.”

She wanted to argue, but his very confident assassination of her social circle was, to her consternation, correct. Hermione and Luna, they were Harry’s friends, whom she knew first and foremost through his connection to Ron. Neither witch had been her friend first. Neither of them really spent much time with her outside of Harry and Ron’s presence, either. Ditto for Neville. Even Dean. None of them would pick her first…and that was why she would never share her darker heart with any of them. She would continue to hide that part of herself away, because she was ashamed of that girl. Only the diary version of Tom Riddle had known her.

Apparently, Blaise Zabini had sussed her out, too.

“H-How did you know?” she asked, ashamed by the ugly truth that she’d given her love to people who didn’t love her back just as equally. Worse, she’d run after them all, hoping for a scrap of affection from them.

She shouldn’t have to beg for such things.

She felt confused by how easily Blaise had taken her apart in only a few short sentences. Perhaps that was why he’d been sorted Slytherin. He had a way with words.

“Ginevra, look at me.”

When she did, she noted there was no pity in his eyes, but a soft resignation that seemed utterly foreign coming from someone like him.

“Did you think the Hufflepuff win you pulled off in March was the first time I’d actually noticed you? I’ve been aware of you for a long time.” He bent forward until his mouth touched her ear and whispered, “ _Seein_ g a person is the first step to _accepting_ them.”

A hot flush crept over her from head to toe.

“Can I help you two with something?” the chirpy shop worker asked, coming up behind them and noted them standing before the polishing kits. “Perhaps a chamois for your brooms?”

The unwanted intrusion made Ginny suddenly aware of how close Zabini stood, how easily she’d let him into her space…and fallen for his crap. She’d let him peek in her head, let him undermine her confidence, made her question her friends!

She’d been momentarily distracted by a clever Slytherin who used his good looks and talent at assessing people’s weaknesses to work his way into her confidence.

Gee, where had she experienced that particular undertaking before?

_Tom Riddle, meet Blaise Zabini._

“You know, you almost had me there,” she admitted, regaining some of her lost footing and shoving him to step back. “You just pushed a little too hard at the end, though. It was the fake sympathy in your face that gave you away. Nice try, snake, but this was a ‘lose’ for you.”

With that, she shoved past him and hastened out of the shop, determined not to give the boy anymore thought. He’d overplayed his hand and so now this round was hers.

She headed down the row, and towards the Three Broomsticks, where she was to meet Harry and the others. According to the owl post station, she was already ten minutes late for that gathering….which meant she’d spent entirely too much time allowing that forked-tongued Slytherin devil access to her inner thoughts. She’d have to be on her guard from now on whenever he was around.

It seemed he was wicked good at the whole covert infiltration thing, too.

“We just ordered,” Ron told her as she entered the pub and neared their usual table in the corner. “Harry’s bought the first round.”

“Well, then Harry can march on over to the bar add a Tango soda to the tab,” she said, taking a seat next to her brother and across from Luna. “I am, after all, celebrating being single again.”

“Yeah?” Harry asked, sitting up straight and suddenly interested. “So you really dumped Thomas then? Like, for good? It wasn’t just a rumour?”

Next to him, Hermione elbowed Potter. “I think what he means is we’re all sorry your relationship with Dean ended badly,” she said with a pointed glare at Harry for his thoughtlessness, “and that we’re here for you if you need to talk or a shoulder to lean on.”

“Um, yeah, that,” Harry said with a big, fecking grin taking up the whole of his face. “Really..tragic. Here if you need me.”

He scurried away to go put Ginny’s order in with the rest.

“Did you really break up?” Ron asked her, surprised by the news. “Do I have to punch Dean for it?” He threw one bulky arm around Neville’s neck and pulled him into a headlock-slash-embrace. “Nev and I will do it for you, if you need, sis.”

Neville made some gurgling noise of assent and tapped out on the table for Ron to release him.

Luna leaned forward then, as if to impart some grand secret. Ginny met her across the table to listen. “If you need a charm to chase away the cloud of Blibbering Humdingers nesting in your hair now, I can make you one,” the blonde offered, quite sincere. “They’re not as pesky as Nargles, but they can drill into your head if left alone for too long.”

“Oh, uh, nah. I’m good everyone,” Ginny replied to all offers, deciding then and there that Zabini had been wrong. Her friends cared for her…even if they didn’t show it in the way she always expected or needed.

This, right now, proved it.

Sure, they still treated her like the ‘kid sister’ now, but they wouldn’t always. She’d grow up and out of it soon enough.

Harry returned with her multi-coloured soda and set it in front of her.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.”

Ginny licked her lips, tasting the residual tart flavour of Zabini’s cherry-scented wine on them. Regardless of the mind-fuck she’d just endured earlier, at least she now had her answer as to whether or not she’d been imagining the Slytherin’s intense scrutiny of her or not: he’d studied her, alright…and just as she’d guessed, it was so he could find vulnerabilities to exploit, to demoralize her.

Well, that was one question answered.

Now she could stop wondering about him altogether, and things could get back to normal.


	3. May-June, 1997

* * *

**May-June, 1997**

“Good on you for the House Cup,” Zabini said without looking up at her from the depths of his Transfiguration textbook, the dim lights from the library flickering nearby in their sconces and making his face inscrutable to her. “I hear you and Potter are finally a thing, too.”

Taken aback by his cool demeanour and even chillier words, Ginny wasn’t sure how to answer him other than, “thanks”.

Lingering at his study table felt odd, so she started to wander off, unsure why she’d approached him and what she’d expected out of it. All she knew was the staring game had never ended, despite her uncovering the reason for it, and he’d been unusually chill towards her lately.

Things were back to ‘normal’ between them.

…So why was she bothered by that fact?

“Tell me something: did he finally notice you because you brought the win to him that he’d wanted this year,” he asked her, licking his fingers to turn the page, “or because he realised you’re not just a female version of his best mate?”

The words were shockingly blunt, cruel, and secretly resonated, as she’d wondered such for a fraction of a second a few days before, when her new boyfriend had approached her and Ron in the Great Hall and took a seat next to his friend, rather than her. She’d decided she was being a ninny goose later, though, as Harry had always treated her thus and it would be strange if he’d started acting differently just because they’d kissed and he’d asked her to be his girl. They were friends first, after all.

As for liking her because she’d won them the House Cup…

No, this was just more of that same game he’d been playing with her. Inserting nuggets of doubt in her head and demoralizing her. She wasn’t going to fall for that again!

“That’s a horrible thing to ask,” she finally said, anger beginning to boil her blood.

How dare he? As if she wasn’t attractive enough that she had to feed Harry’s ego to get him to like her!

“Is it true, though?” he asked, looking up from his book.

His gaze was dark, but just as angry as hers, for some reason.

Whatever his damage, it wasn’t her business, and she didn’t have to tolerate him taking his bad moods out on her. And she especially didn’t need him casting about with nasty insinuations about the nature of her relationship with Harry.

“Fuck off,” she hissed and walked away.

Kicking herself for having put herself into the line of fire once more, she swiftly collected her things from her table down the way and abandoned the library, knowing she’d get no studying done while in such a foul temper. Zabini had soured her desire to do anything but go for a fast fly around the pitch, giving it a good run to work off her bubbling fury.

Why had she even bothered talking to him?

Okay, _so_ she’d thought that as the captain for Slytherin’s Quidditch team this year, and despite their history of antagonism, she’d ask him his expert opinion of the maneouvers she’d mapped out for the team during that final game against Ravenclaw for the Cup.

So, _well,_ she’d assumed he could, at least, be civil and professional enough to offer an unbiased assessment, as it was considered poor sportsmanship to do otherwise when one team captain approached another.

And well, _yeah,_ she’d trusted that the conversation could be guided in such a way as to keep personal issues out of it.

Clearly, she’d been wrong, wrong, _wrong!_

Everything Blaise Zabini had ever done had been for a personal reason. There wasn’t an altruistic bone in the man’s too-fit body! Why had she forgotten that fact?

Bloody Slytherins!

* * *

Three days later, she received a package via owl post.

 _“I’m sorry for running you off,”_ the attached note said. _“You deserve every win, Red.”_

Inside the rectangular box was a bottle of wine with a ribbon tied around the bottle’s stem, its colour as fiery orange as her hair.

Nebbiolo from Gattinara.

Inside, Ginny’s heart fluttered at such a thoughtful gift.

Only for a second, though…because clearly, this was just a ruse, too. She’d be stupid to drop her guard for it.

“Who’s that from?” Ron asked around a mouthful of breakfast.

She smiled.

“A friend.”


	4. July, 1997

* * *

**July, 1997**

Dumbledore was dead, Bill was forever changed by a werewolf’s attack, and she’d dueled a Death Eater named Amycus Carrow, a man twice her age and with the viciousness to match, and come out of it only with minor injuries.

Lady Luck had been on her side that night.

Literally.

She’d survived that brutal fight with an older, morally unhampered fighter thanks to the Felix Felicis potion she’d taken with the others in advance, Harry’s Impediment jinx…and Blaise Zabini.

Her Slytherin ‘hero’ had shown up just as Harry had ducked after Snape, Malfoy, and their co-conspirators escaping the grounds. He’d been the one to mend the Slicing hex she’d sustained—a final spell flung after a volley of unsuccessful _Crucios_ that connected just before Harry’s _Impedimenta_ had struck her attacker. Although she hated to admit it, because it meant she was now indebted to the snake, Zabini’s being there had been a case of right timing, as she might have bled out had she not had immediate attention.

Closing her eyes, she lay back in her bed, wondering why he’d come to her rescue.

 _“Hold still,”_ he’d growled at her, and cast a Healing charm on her hip. _“Give the skin a minute to mend before you go tearing after lover boy.”_

She’d sat in silence while he’d worked on fixing her and mending her clothing with another quick spell.

 _“Go,”_ he’d finally told her when he was finished, still refusing to meet her eye, preparing to slip back into the shadows remaining from the Pervian Instant Darkness Powder, which lingered here and there in the corridors. _“He needs you.”_

Somehow thanking him hadn’t been enough; she’d felt it the moment the words had left her mouth and yet doing or saying anything else felt too much like crossing a line, one Slytherins and Gryffindors were implicitly told never to step over or around. So, she’d left Zabini behind without another word, chasing after Harry, as she’d always done.

-Would always do.

She wondered now, lying about in her cool-charmed bedroom in the midst of summer’s worst heat wave, petting at the silvery scar on her hip, just how much that decision had cost her.

Her virginity, for one.

Her pride another.

Zabini had been right, after all. Harry had never been her friend. He’d merely wanted something from her...and once he’d taken it, he’d decided he hadn’t wanted the rest of it after all. Oh, he’d had a lovely excuse all lined up in the afters while redressing, a nice speech prepared in advance about how he’d be unable to fight the Dark Lord if he knew he was putting her in danger. Yadda. Yadda.

_“It’s a hard lesson to learn, but a real friend runs with you and for you. They don’t bench you.”_

Pretty, brave, heroic-sounding words had poured like honey from Potter’s mouth that night, but it had all amounted to the same thing: Harry had fucked her and dumped her.

_“You don’t need a White Knight. You need a real friend.”_

She wiped at the hot tears in her eyes, but this time, they wouldn’t be staunched with a quick swipe and a bit of stiff upper lip.

“Godric, you were so right,” she sobbed and turned over to cry into her pillow.

What a fool she’d been.

* * *

It took her three tries, but finally, Ginny wrote to him.

She borrowed Percy’s old owl, Hermes, to send her letter, as her brother had decided to set the bloody thing free when he’d obtained a new owl, and it had automatically come back to roost in the attic of the Burrow.

Her letter was short and to the point.

_“What else do you know about me?”_

His reply came the next day.

_“That you are clearly tired of running.”_


	5. August, 1997

* * *

**August, 1997**

Her Auntie Muriel was right: the dress she’d worn as Fleur’s bridesmaid _had_ been too low-cut in the front, providing Zabini with a nice peek at her cleavage as he whisked her out of harm’s way during the attack on Bill and Fleur’s wedding.

“What the hell are you doing here?” she demanded in a harsh whisper as they landed, unceremoniously, in the middle of the darkened apple orchard behind her family’s home. It was enough of a distance away from the fighting for safety’s sake, too far to really see what was going on. “Why did you take me out of there? I have to go back!”

She stomped back towards the tent, where even now, she could hear the screams and see the flashing green lights indicating more than a few people were using the Killing Curse.

Gods, her parents were still in there!

She’d seen Hermione Disapparate herself, Ron, and Harry out, but the others…

“Always with the running in the wrong direction, Red,” he murmured and grabbed her around the waist to stop her progress.

His big hand accidentally pulled down her dress in the front, making Ginny acutely aware of the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra, only using a temporary Sticking charm to hold up her breasts. She was sure she was now flashing the whole yard. Thankfully, the orchard was dark enough to cover up that fact.

She struggled to get away.

“You don’t even have a wand, witch! Calm down and think!”

He was right; she’d left her wand in the house, thinking the event ‘safe’ and that for just today and tonight, she could let down her guard.

Nothing was safe anymore, apparently.

“My family-”

“If I go back for them, will you stay here?”

She went still in his hold to think on his offer.

It was too dark in the orchard to read his face, to know his sincerity, even if she had been facing the right way. She had to decide how much she trusted him and she had to do it without sight to back up her verdict…and she had to do it quickly, as the sounds of fighting grew louder behind them.

The fact was she didn’t trust him further than she could toss him.

Yes, _alright_ , he hadn’t poisoned her with the contents of his flask that day in the Quidditch supplies shop.

Alright, _okay_ , he’d been decent to her the day he’d approached her to congratulate her on her win against Hufflepuff.

Okay, _sure_ , he hadn’t once been a pompous arse to her in the few letters they’d exchanged since the beginning of last month. He’d been funny, engaging, sly, and sweet…which set off alarm bells in a variety of ways.

Still…

“How about you give me your wand and I go back and ensure they get out?” she countered.

His growl of frustration would have been adorable, if it had been under different circumstances.

“Stubborn witch. Come on.”

He held his hand out to her. Through the trees, she could see it for the open invitation it was: he would take her back personally, and help her save her family.

As she was reaching for it, it suddenly occurred to her that he’d arrived right when the Death Eaters had, and she paused, pulled back.

Was he…one of them?

“Why are you here?” she asked, stepping away, preparing to rabbit through the trees she knew as well as her bedroom’s layout, having lived her whole life playing under them. “You came with _them,_ didn’t you? Are you one of his followers, too?”

“Red-”

Despite the fact Zabini seemed harmless enough it was also no coincidence that he’d twice shown up where Death Eaters were attacking. What were the odds that he just _happened_ by both times?

Zero to none.

…But was it possible he’d heard of the attacks by eavesdropping or some other slimy Slytherin trick, and that he’d raced to help her side both times?

Moody would say there was no such thing as coincidence, and that Blaise’s actions were proof of his being in league with the Dark Lord’s forces. The crazy, old Auror’s lessons had been drilled into her head in the weeks since Dumbledore’s death when he’d appeared at the Burrow to ‘work with the rabble’ and ‘shape ‘em up’. If he was right there with them now, he’d say that she was too easily swayed by her Weasley upbringing and its open hearts and second chances policy, and that for all her fire, she was ‘too soft’ for war.

Maybe he was right, but she also knew he was wrong in thinking that such a thing made her stupid. Her older brothers had taught her well to be suspicious of fine gifts wrapped in fancy paper.

They’d also taught her to keeping moving, to never stay still.

There was no more time to wonder on Zabini’s motives or loyalties. He’d saved her for whatever reason, but that did not mean it wasn’t a self-serving one. Regardless, she had no more time to give to unravelling the matter, as her family needed her and that was all that mattered.

She quickly spun and made her way deeper into the grove, seeking a way back to the house. It was full harvest season, and the canvas of leaves overhead quickly blocked out much of the light, ensuring her easy escape. The floor of the garden was littered with apples that had fallen from their branches, however, and the uncollected treasure was dangerous to her footing. Twice she stumbled and slipped, her fancy flats designed for solid ground, not to provide traction for running. It was an awkward and dangerous flight to the other end of the orchard, and it took her far out of her path back towards the house, but eventually she was able to circle around the hills and toss her shoes once she was back on grassy mounds.

Barefoot, she ran to the back of the house, hoping to slip inside and grab her wand from where it lay atop her bedroom dresser.

The sounds of fighting had stopped, and now there came the calls of the desperate and fearful for their loved ones. Ginny heard her name, her brother Charlie bellowing it at the top of his lungs. Her father and mother, Bill and Fleur, and the twins echoed it.

She ran to them instead, relief of their survival causing her to break into sobs as she rounded the house and looked down upon the wedding tent.

“I’m here!” she called out, and hurried to them.

Charlie was the first to reach her, and he pulled her up and into his burly arms in a hug guaranteed to squeeze the life from her. The others weren’t far behind, and soon she was engulfed in embraces and kisses to her cheeks peppered her face.

“We were so worried when we saw that boy in the black hood pull you away,” her mother exclaimed, patting her down and ensuring Ginny was unharmed. “Did he hurt you? I didn’t recognise him. I think he came with _them_.”

Some hint of movement off to her left had Ginny glancing in that direction. There, at the edge of the orchard stood Zabini. He watched her and her family a moment longer, and then Disapparated in a crack of thunder.

Instantly, the others had their wands up and the twins were already heading in that direction to check it out, but Ginny knew it was too late. He was long gone, back to wherever he’d come from.

Maybe Zabini was wrong this time, she thought as she stared at the carnage inside the tent, and the remaining Aurors prowling about, hauling people up and binding them for incarceration. She _had_ needed a white knight after all.

It just hadn’t been the one she’d assumed deserved that title.

“No, Mum, h-he saved me,” she admitted. “I think he came to save me.”

Her mother and father exchanged a look of concern, even as her mother adjusted the shoulder straps on her dress to pull it up a bit in the front for modesty.

“If he did, sis,” Charlie said, “that means he knew this was going down tonight. He’s on the inside of You-Know-Who’s network.”

Yeah, that’s what bothered her most about his unexpected appearance and rescue.

If it was true, it wasn’t just Malfoy anymore the kids her age had to consider the enemy. How many had turned against the light?

One way or another, she’d find out come September the first.


	6. September, 1997

* * *

**September, 1997**

Zabini wasn’t on the train to school that year, but he had appeared to catch a Thestral-drawn carriage at the platform at Hogsmeade. He had been whisked away by the nightmarish creatures, along with his fellow Slytherins, before Ginny could speak to him, however.

In the few weeks after the beginning of term, he hadn’t once looked at her whenever their paths crossed on the school grounds. He hadn’t attempted to speak to her, either. Since Snape and the Carrows had taken over, she’d noted the Slytherins kept their collective heads down and their interest distracted by their education. They’d become quite the studious bunch, taking up rows in the library in the evenings. They did not mingle with other Houses, walked together in twos and groups, and rarely spoke out. The snakes had finally unified and closed ranks.

So, despite his multiple attempts to get her attention most of this last year, Ginny had become invisible to Zabini this term.

Perhaps it was for the best, she thought. Whatever confrontation they’d have, it wouldn’t end any other way but with her accusing him of being a Death Eater or a sympathizer, since he’d appeared during the attack on Bill’s wedding and therefore had to have known about it in advance. Charlie had most likely been right in that observation, as there really was no other logical explanation for Zabini randomly showing up in the nick of time.

The nagging voice of her conscience said she should at least acknowledge his help that night, and to show gratitude by keeping her mouth shut with the recriminations, but her pride kept her from taking that step. …That and the fact the school was under lockdown and all movements were closely watched by members of the staff.

Still…

It had taken her less than an hour to come up with the simplest plan for reaching out to him, but another three days to work up the courage. Hiding behind her Prefect badge wasn’t the most original idea, nor the bravest, but it was the best move she could make that wouldn’t invite scrutiny by a Carrow…something she’d learned over the intervening weeks since classes had begun was a no good, very bad thing.

She approached him in an empty hallway while he was walking with Malfoy one evening on his way back to the dungeons from the library.

“Zabini, your tie is crooked and your shirt untucked,” she said and quickly used a tricking charm she’d learned from Fred and George to pull the edge of his shirt from his trousers and muss his tie. “That could cost you points.”

He and his companion stopped with all the suddenness of someone freezing their shoes to the floor, and they both stared at her as if she was barmy. Having gone this far, Ginny swallowed her pride and approached him, pretending to fix his tie for him by hand. He didn’t make a move to stop her, she noticed.

“Laziness is no excuse for sloppiness.”

His lips curled with amusement at that, the first sign that he wasn’t immune to her presence after all.

“I believe it’s the _only_ excuse for such a thing,” he countered.

She couldn’t help but smile at his cleverness.

Nearby, Malfoy made a tsking noise, clearly annoyed by her obvious ploy to get his friend’s attention. “Could you hurry the flirting along?” he demanded in a low hiss. “I don’t fancy being caught out and in the open by Filch. He snitches.”

“You worry too much, ferret,” she replied, assuring Zabini’s tie was perfect…and that she’d secured the note thanking him for his help that summer into the satchel on his hip by sleight-of-hand. “There’s still fifteen ‘til curfew. And I’m not flirting.”

“Riiiiight.”

“Fuck off,” she said without heat and stepped back to examine her handy work.

It would do.

“All better?” Zabini dared ask her.

“Your knot needs practice,” she told him with a critical eye and then turned and headed back the way she’d come. “Like your Quidditch game.”

Behind her he laughed, and the sound was a strange relief to her after the last four weeks of an icy stalemate between them.


	7. October, 1997

* * *

**October, 1997**

Zabini bent at the waist and held out his hand for her to take.

“By now you should know there are two things guaranteed to incite the Carrows’ lust, Weasley: running from them and standing up to them,” he said as he waited for her as patient as any snake to take his dangerous offer. “You don’t seem to have any problem with the former when it comes to me, but invite trouble with the latter when it comes to Alecto and Amycus. Why is that, I wonder?”

Ginny stared at that outstretched hand, so much larger than her own, elegant and well-manicured, the wealth and refinement behind the long, fine fingers obvious in their care. By comparison, her hand, when she raised it to warily accept his offer, was all dry skin and dusted with the sun’s kiss, calloused from years of holding too tight to a broom, the nails desperate for attention.

Trelawney could have made a case for incompatibility from their hands alone, she thought as their skin met and he guided her to her feet.

“Because you just annoy me,” she replied with a growl, “but they infuriate me.”

She could have sworn she heard him murmur, _“smart girl”_ under his breath as she brushed off her bum.

“Did he hurt you?”

His expression was unreadable, a serpent’s shroud of nonchalance conveyed through half-lidded eyes that gleamed with dark secrets, but there behind the shadows, she thought she spied a slow simmering fire.

It was the same look he’d given her in June, after she and Harry…

“No,” she fibbed, righting her clothing and setting a bit of distance between them with a smooth backwards step. Bad enough he could see the hand-shaped bruises on her throat and shoulders where she’d been choked into near unconsciousness. She didn’t want him or anyone seeing the rest. Her arse still smarted from where Amycus had taken her knickers down, bent her over his knee, and spanked her until she was red and the flesh had stung. “I’m fine. He didn’t rape me, if that’s what you’re asking. It was just an ‘inventive’ punishment by a perverted child molester.”

“Red, you don’t need to front with me.”

“I said I’m fine!”

If this war ever ended, and if her side was victorious, she’d assure Amycus Carrow paid for what he’d done to her today. Killing him wasn’t an option, but she could gladly take his fingers and leave him with stumps. Let him try spanking another girl again then!

“You can’t really lie to me, you know? Not anymore. I can tell.”

“I…know,” she said a bit less defensively, understanding what he was attempting to do. She put her hand on his arm to assure him that she would survive what had been done to her today, oddly comfortable with touching him despite still worrying about where his final loyalties lay. At least for today, right now, she knew they were with her, though. “Really, I’ll survive this. Thank you, though, for being here and…caring.”

What Zabini implied was right, though—she was lucky today that this was all that had happened to her. She wasn’t proud of saying it, but in this era, she had to thank Merlin, Godric, and all the stars for her pure-blood status. Despite coming from a family of ‘blood traitors’, as the Death Eaters deemed the Weasleys, there was a rule against harming pure-blood witches by any of them…for reasons she guessed had to do with some nefarious future plans by Voldemort’s army. She’d seen the proof some of the things Amycus did to the half-blood witches in the castle, and it had involved a lot more than just a choking out and a spanking by the freaky pedophile.

Smoothly gliding forward, Zabini removed any separation she’d unintentionally put between them and pressed a single, cool finger against one of the bruises on her throat. He said nothing, merely looked at it, weighing its intended message.

His touch made her pulse leap, her cheeks flush with heat.

There was the slightest shift in his face the longer he stared at the injury done her, a hint of barely-restrained anger that started with the tightening of his mouth and ended as a black flame in his eyes, but before she could interpret its meaning, Zabini was turning away, moving past her as if none of it had ever happened.

“Don’t overestimate your protected status, Ginevra. No one’s safe right now,” he cautioned her, having witnessed the initial exchange that had ended in her detention with Amycus Carrow tonight. At the end of the hall, he stopped before rounding the corner and turned his head to her. “You especially might want to have a care in Defence on Friday.”

With that, he disappeared back into the shadows, slinking towards the dungeons.

She watched him go.

* * *

On Friday morning, a boggart escaped its captivity in Amycus Carrow’s classroom and attacked him in the form of a bloodied and grasping Voldemort, seeking to eat his soul to stay alive a little longer. Ginny smiled in thanks at Zabini as they passed each other on the stairs later that same day, knowing who’d been responsible for that clever ambush.

To her surprise, his lips formed a silent, ‘you’re welcome’.

They had many similar run-ins over the next couple of weeks, with either him or her pranking the more hateful members of the staff with a series of seemingly ‘magical accidents’. It became something of a quiet competition between them, and soon they became willing accomplices in a silent rebellion against the Carrow twins.


	8. November, 1997

* * *

**November, 1997**

“That was brilliant!”

Zabini didn’t glance up from his reading, but he did make a waving gesture inviting Ginny to sit at his table in the hidden library nook. For once, he was alone in studying for his N.E.W.T.s. His usual partners, Malfoy and Nott, were off together somewhere…probably sucking each other off, she thought. The latest rumour was they were seen kissing in an empty classroom in the basement two weeks ago.

“Well?” she prodded when he didn’t immediately answer her accolade. “Are you going to spill how you did it, or what?”

A second more, his eyes skimming the page quickly, and then he shut the immense volume and set it down, giving her his full attention. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re referring to,” he said with a teasing flash of white teeth, and it was obvious to Ginny that he did, in fact, know exactly what incident to which she alluded.

“Peeves flooded the teacher’s loo on the Carrows’ side of the castle this morning.”

“Did he?”

“Mmm,” she agreed. “Seems someone freed him from that locked tower he’s been kept in since the middle of first term.”

His amusement bordered on the sinister.

“Brave soul. That’s a dangerous endeavour. Poltergeists are unpredictable agents of Chaos. Impossible to kill–”

“Difficult to control, yeah, I know. Seems Snape and the Carrows are going to be busy trying to catch him and lock him back up.”

“Could take weeks…and many more incidents.”

He didn’t sound in the least bit sorry for such misfortune.

She was coming to like him more and more, each passing day.

“You know, there might be a position for you at the joke shop when all of this ends. I’m sure Fred and George would gain from your level of slipperiness, Zabini.”

His smile slipped a notch at the reference to the end of the war.

They could all feel it in the air, the tense and breathless anticipation of some definitive moment looming just over the horizon. Things would be decided within a year, maybe less, she thought. It seemed Zabini understood that as well.

His gaze dropped to the table, and it seemed he was involved in an internal war of his own.

“I’ll have to return to Italy when this is finally over.”

She knew from the rumours that Signora Zabini had thrown in her lot with Voldemort, supporting his cause financially from the safety of her spider’s web in another country. The woman had ambitions far outstripping her local reach, and thought hanging her coattails on the Dark Lord might expand her political influence into Britain.

-Yet another Slytherin being forced to choose between his conscience and his familial duties. That seemed to be the theme for many from that House, or so the gossip stated.

“You’re of age now, right? You don’t have to do what your mother wants.”

He shrugged.

“Who said I’m doing anything for her?”

“Are you afraid you’re going to be arrested if the Dark Lord loses?”

“Not particularly, because I have a plan…but news flash, Red: pretty much all of those standing on the Dark Lord’s side of the aisle are Slytherins. Assuming your Order wins, guilt by association is going to be the excuse for getting away with all sorts of ugly acts of revenge against members of my House. It’s the way of things when power shifts. Someone is made a scapegoat.” He lowered his voice until it was a barely-there whisper, forcing Ginny to lean forward to hear. “Do you really think the returned Ministry will let any Slytherin walk away after this is all done, assuming it goes their way? They’ll round up every snake for Akzaban or a Dementor’s Kiss. And if the Dark Lord wins? …Either way, I only keep my head if I have leverage, which is something I can only get in Italy.”

“You’re going to run?”

The idea seemed patently ludicrous, at least to her. Standing her ground and fighting had been the only plan she’d had since she’d first heard Voldemort had targeted Harry. There was no other choice.

“You, who has always shamed me for running? That’s rich,” she continued, suddenly angry at him for taking the yellow way out and crawling back into his snake hole. “I guess you’re not the man I thought you were, Zabini!”

She made it out of the library and down the corridor before his hand on her arm stopped her. He drew her into a nearby empty storage room and waived a Silencing charm into life so they wouldn’t be overheard.

“Not all of us are free to choose, Red. Why don’t you understand-”

“What I understand is that you are a grown man,” she spat at him, secure in the knowledge that the muting charm had been well-cast and would hold, “and yet you slink around here like a little child, afraid of your own shadow—you and all the other Slytherins!”

“We don’t slink-”

“This is war!” she shouted.

“I KNOW THAT!” he roared back, and it was the first time she’d ever seen him lose that icy cool he wore over his features like a second skin.

He stepped away from him, tightening her grip on her wand, unsure of his intentions now that the top had been blown from his cauldron.

“I know, Ginevra,” he said, calmer and a bit deflated by what was, she was sure, terror in her face at his reaction. “I’ve known it for longer than you have.”

He ran a tired hand over his closely-shaved head and sighed.

“Look, there’s something you don’t know that-” He seemed loathe to discuss it, but it was clear she’d forced his hand, and now it was put up or shut up time. “We don’t discuss it with outsiders in my House, but the truth is…Salazar Slytherin’s only rule for how we were to behave towards each other was this: ‘ _ácwellednesum férscipum’_ , which is Anglo-Saxon for, ‘no killing the fraternity’. He didn’t want pure-bloods spilling the blood of other pure-bloods. He thought we were too rare, even back then when he helped found the school. It was one of his strongest commands to us, and every generation since for the last thousand years has obeyed that directive. The night I was sorted Slytherin, there was an initiation ceremony and I was forced to take a vow on my magic to never intentionally kill another Slytherin. It’s an ancient rite, but every one of us since Salazar commanded it has taken the oath. None of us can turn our magic on the other with the intent to kill. We can harm each other, but not murder each other.”

The sound of her pounding heart was loud in Ginny’s ears.

Was he telling the truth? Was this why they’d all just gone along with the program, not fought back, and done whatever the Carrows and Snape required of them?

“What happens if you do?” she asked, shaken by his revelation. If he was telling the truth, it had far and wide implications for the entire war. Any Slytherin on the Order side could never use an _Avada Kedavra_ in battle against Voldemort’s troops. They’d have to be very careful of what spells they did cast in a fight, too. “Say you accidentally kill a fellow snake, what happens?”

“Accidents don’t count. The intention to murder has to be the cause,” he replied. “If you purposefully kill or attempt to kill a fellow Slytherin, it’s said you’ll suffer a magical backlash of karma equal to your intentions. You succeed in the kill, you die. Maybe not right away, but usually sooner rather than later.”

It all sounded too farfetched, honestly. Agreeing to be magically leashed was-

Wait, wasn’t that what the Dark Mark was supposed to be, too…a leash?

“You’re serious,” she said, noting he seemed perfectly so.

“Deadly.”

Alright, he wasn’t fooling.

Still…

“Come on, someone in your House had to have killed someone at some point over the last one thousand years. It didn’t have to be anything as fancy as a duel or an assassination attempt. What if they were a…a highway robber and killed a Slytherin after stealing from them, so they wouldn’t be identified? It’s not as if a robber’s going to ask his victims what House they’d been sorted before finishing them off, right? So, does that mean the robber will die?”

He shrugged. “Of course there have been attempts over the last thousand years. That last one was rumoured to be a son of one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, even. In the last war, some poor sod named Regulus Black tried to kill another Slytherin and was said to have died in a gruesome manner, though his body was never found. That story was drilled into me the night I took the oath. In your hypothetical example, I would assume the robber would die, too…eventually. That’s why Salazar Slytherin’s favourite motto was _‘Cave agens stultum’_ —or, ‘beware acting foolish’. He impressed caution on his House…unlike you Gryffindors, who were encouraged to be brash by your founder.”

His sigh indicated exhaustion and resignation, and it was clear from the dark circles under his eyes, he’d burned his candle at both ends for too long lately. Had the Carrows tormented him, too, when Ginny wasn’t looking? They did seem to have only slightly less hate for a foreign pure-blood than a ‘blood traitor’, in her estimation.

“I see what you’re getting at, though,” he conceded. “Even if the oath is just a scare tactic old Salazar snake-face dreamed up, would you really want to take the chance once bound to it?”

No, she wouldn’t. Instead, she’d probably require the help of someone like Hermione to research the oath to see how she could get around it.

He was correct in that she definitely wouldn’t act rashly and run right out, throwing _Avada_ s every which way, though. Reckless though her House members may be, she’d like to think there was some bit of sense under all their foolhardiness.

“The vow doesn’t stop you from breaking each other financially,” she noted, thinking of her own family’s situation and what she’d learned of it through her mother. It seemed her mum had been cut off from the family inheritance when she’d married Arthur Weasley, the only son of a pure-blood family that had fallen into financial ruin years earlier and been outcast by the Sacred Twenty-Eight for its alliances and friendships with Muggle-borns. At the time, Ginny’s grandfather had two strapping sons, Fabian and Gideon, and so the odious man had assumed disowning Molly Prewett-Weasley wouldn’t impact the family’s heritage too badly, especially as females were considered less important in elitist wizarding society than males. Then Ginny’s uncles had died in the First Wizarding War against Voldemort, and soon after, their father had died of a broken heart. The family name went extinct and the fortune had been given over to the next male heir in line, a member of the Macmillan family. Ginny’s grandfather had intentionally not changed his Last Will and Testament before death, cutting her mother out entirely from his estate, determined to punish even from the grave his only daughter for refusing to bend to his will. “You can destroy each other in so many other ways without repercussion by using a loophole.”

“Ruination is not murder, though,” he pointed out.

“It can be,” she growled. “Starvation from lack of funds and support can put you in the gutter just as fast as a Wasting spell.”

He nodded in grudging agreement.

“I don’t think a side effect of a spell, however, counts under the oath,” he said. “If it did, the entire House of Slytherin would most likely not exist today. It has to be a direct intent to end someone’s life.”

He reached out and placed a friendly hand on the side of her arm.

“And what this all means, Red, is no Slytherin in school today will lift a wand against You-Know-Who’s army when it comes, since many of them are from Slytherin House. The fear of breaking the vow alone will work to ensure that if they won’t join his cause, at least they won’t get in his way. Your Order shouldn’t expect any help from them.”

“And what will you do?”

Zabini dropped his arm and his gaze, and there was so much regret in his voice when he spoke, it made Ginny’s heart ache.

“I’ll do what I have to do: the right thing…for me.”

Well, that told her, didn’t it? He wasn’t going to fight for the Order. He was going to go back to Italy, to hide under Mummy’s skirts and let the cards fall where they may.

He was going to let people die and lift no finger to stop it.

She took it back. Zabini hadn’t been wrong earlier that year when he’d observed she hadn’t needed a white knight. Ginny now knew, after all she’d been through in just the past six months, that she needed no such saving; she was knight enough all on her own. And insofar as good soldiers went, there were more than enough of those in the Order, with Harry as their lead, if slightly tarnished, paladin. But it would have been nice to know Blaise was man enough to stand with her, even if it was from the shadows, where he seemed to prefer.

She’d never been so disappointed in all her life.

“Coward,” she accused, dashing unexpected tears from her eyes with a hard swipe of her hand.

The door flew open at her spell a moment later and then she was running away from him…again.


	9. December, 1997

* * *

**December, 1997**

The ice ball hit her in the side with all the power of a magic fist behind it.

Ginny gasped and fell to the ground, the pain so intense it stole her breath. She hung onto her wand by some miracle, but unfortunately didn’t have time to fire back any sort of equal volley, as she was too busy gritting her teeth and trying not to cry like a baby. Had the attack broken a rib or two? Sure as hell felt it!

Besides, she wouldn’t know who to send crying to the Hospital Wing when she’d finished with them, as the little turd seemed to have run off.

So much for Moody’s defensive and offensive training this past summer. It did her no good whatsoever when she’d been in her head considering things and not paying attention to her surroundings.

‘Constant vigilance’ was right.

Fuck, that hurt!

Rolling over to get up was an exercise in pain, and she just knew there would be the start of some pretty impressive bruising if she were to pull her shirt up and take a look. No need though, as she’d had these kinds of hits from Quaffles and Bludgers, and was well-familiar by now with the routine of gimping to Madam Pomfrey for a fix’er up.

Gasping in pain by the time she’d hobbled up to the fourth floor, she had little energy left for taking in her surroundings. It was the Hospital Wing; how much could it have changed from the last time she’d been there just a few days prior, thanks to a particularly cruel D.A.D.A. lesson. All she cared about was there was an empty cot for her to collapse into, and she headed for it, mindless of who else was there to witness her humiliation.

“Got you too, I see,” Zabini called from where he lay in a bed, the healer fussing over him. She had a corner of his shirt up and was plastering some Bruise Paste over a particularly ugly purple spot. “It’s Peeves. He’s decided everyone’s the enemy again.”

“Little blighter,” she growled and took a seat where Madam Pomfrey indicated, in the bed directly across from the Slytherin. “No loyalty whatsoever.”

The healer didn’t verbalize her agreement, but it was there in the look she threw Ginny. Clearly, the witch had been hoping the poltergeist’s reign of terror would remain fixated on the Death Eaters, especially as he had absolutely no qualms about singing his disdain for ‘Moldy Voldy’ at the top of his lungs throughout the school, even during lesson times.

Chaos was a fickle beast, it seemed.

“Any news on whether or not we’re allowed to go home for Christmas hols?” she asked the elderly witch while awaiting her turn.

The woman’s expressions said it all: they were all waiting for the ‘high and mighty’ Dark Lord to make up his evil, little mind. He hadn’t taken well to the news of her, Neville, and Luna’s rebellion when they’d reopened Dumbledore’s Army in November and had grafitti’d that fact all over the school, even going so far as to declaring a recruitment effort. He could just decide to cancel Christmas on top of everything else.

“Grinchy pox,” she cursed and mock spat on the ground to make her disdain of their ‘leadership’ known.

Madam Pomfrey’s nod was one of solidarity.

It was funny how no one _said_ anything overtly critical of the current regime anymore. She supposed they didn’t need to, though, as the sideways glances and twisted mouths and clenched jaws spoke volume enough. In fact, there were entirely new, inventively creative levels of communication going on inside the castle these days. Some whispers were heard only when the recipient drank a certain potion. Scribbled notes would appear in the margins of specific books in the library on certain nights, and then disappear just as quickly as they’d been read, fading into oblivion. Ghosts popped up randomly through walls to pass on messages from one House to another. Even the plants in the greenhouses could be convinced to unfurl their leaves and hide within them items considered forbidden by the rules, for they disliked the changes going on around them, too. It seemed everyone had upped their espionage skills since Dolores Umbridge had walked the halls of Hogwarts.

Apparently living under ‘the Pink Menace’ two years prior had prepared most of the student body now for the terrorizing by the adults in their world.

It was ironic how that horrid experience had set the groundwork for the rebellion, really.

“There, all done, Mister Zabini,” the healer said, giving her wand a flourishing final wave to ensure he was as set as she could make him. “Now, I want you to lie here until the end of classes today, to ensure the bone sets properly.”

Read: I don’t want the Carrows seeing your injured status as an opportunity for target practice.

She withdrew a bottle of Skele-Gro from her medicine bag and measured out a thimbleful of the liquid. Shoving it in Zabini’s face, she bade him open his mouth.

“Take this.”

As a fellow Quidditch player, the Slytherin had been to the Hospital Wing as many a time as Ginny for bone repair, and was quite familiar with the ghastly taste and effects of the potion. He made a face, but did as requested by the old nurse. Then, as she withdrew to come to Ginny’s side, he leaned back in his cot and stared at her.

“I’m going to need you to remove your shirt,” Poppy commanded, and began setting up a magical curtain for privacy. When she was done, someone came in through the front door of the wing. They didn’t announce themselves, and instantly, the old healer went stiff and alert. “I’ll be back,” she said, with a steady hand on Ginny’s head, and then she turned and crept through the curtain to greet her newest arrival.

Ginny noted the nurse shut the door to the infirmary off from the receiving room, clearly expecting a conversation she didn’t want the students to overhead.

It must be serious.

As Ginny undressed with a painful grunt, Zabini laughed. He sounded dazed, as the medicine began to kick in and lull him into a healing sleep.

“Pink bra or red today, Weasley?”

“Blue, actually,” she lied around a hiss of pain as she got one sleeve off. Sweat had broken out on her forehead and above her lip from the effort. “Knickers don’t match, though.”

“They green?” he asked, and there was a note of hope in his voice.

“Black,” she said just to be contrary. Her intimates ensemble was actually all white today.

To her surprise, he made a humming noise of approval.

“You’d look wicked in all black,” he said, voice fading. The medicine was taking him under, finally. “Black leather boots and a whip in your hand.”

He was out a second later, as evidenced by his snoring.

Ginny tried not to laugh, as it hurt something fierce, but his imagination really was quite hilarious. Her, one of those sado-maso witchy women she’d seen in one of Percy’s naughty stash of mags that he kept under his mattress? The idea was absolutely silly.

…And intriguing.

Of course, she’d have to have had sex more than just the one time…and then she’d have to work her way up to it with loads of practice. Couldn’t start out knowing everything there was to know about the lifestyle just by reading about it, regardless of what Hermione believed. Experience was the best teacher for such things. Where did one go to learn how to wield a flogger anyway, she wondered? Where would you even buy such items?

The thought alone was enough to make her giggle.

Here she was, injured and in pain, and Zabini had distracted her enough to ignore the sharp bite in her side in favour of fantasizing about being an Amazon queen with a bondage and leather fetish. Hilarious.

“I’m wearing all white today, git,” she whispered fondly at him, knowing he couldn’t hear.

Madam Pomfrey came back a few minutes later to work on her injury and to pass on the message from McGonagall that Luna had gone missing. Everyone in the Order was worried the Dark Lord had taken her.

She didn’t need to actually _say_ that last part aloud, though. Ginny could read it as clear as day in the terror reflected in the old woman’s eyes.


	10. January, 1998

* * *

**January, 1998**

Forgiveness and apology were hard for Ginny.

She’d never been one to shrug off the hurtful words or actions by others, especially when her temper had been riled. And she’d always had a problem admitting when she was wrong. This time, though, she swallowed her pride a bit.

Despite the fact she’d been disappointed in his revelation that he wouldn’t be lifting a hand to fight against Voldemort, for the past month and some change since then, he’d continued in whatever way he could to help her stir up trouble within the castle. Making Snape, Filch, and the Carrows miserable was something he _could_ do without breaking his Slytherin vow to ‘do no deathly harm’ to his fellow Housemates and their alumni. It wasn’t enough as far as she was concerned, but it wasn’t nothing, either.

The fact was Zabini wasn’t the enemy right now and he’d proved it in his willingness to help in small ways. She could forgive him for the failure to meet her expectations just for the efforts he was making for her cause, the same as she’d forgiven Harry finally for the same thing.

“I’m sorry,” she offered.

There was an awkward moment where she and Zabini simply stared at the other, trying to figure shite out, but walking the Grand Stairs on patrol wasn’t the best place for such a conversation, honestly. The portraits may not be helping Snape, per se, but they were a nosy, gossipy bunch.

He made the first move, a light shrug of his thick shoulders.

“You were right about not fighting. Nothing I can do about it, but you weren’t wrong in your assessment.”

He moved on down the stairs to head back to the dungeons.

Ginny intercepted him about half way there.

“I think I was,” she argued, grabbing hold of his elbow and stopping him on the third floor landing. “A real coward wouldn’t have helped me out twice now.”

“Three times, technically,” he corrected her with a wry grin. “Once from the Slicing hex, once at the wedding, and in November, I corrected your lovely wall graffiti. Recruitment has an ‘i’ in it, for the record.” 

“Ah, see! That, right there, is why I can’t decide whether I want to punch you or…or…”

“Kiss me?” he dared.

“Or punch you,” she repeated, thinking it so relevant it needed to be said twice. “You’re so infuriatingly blasé about this whole war I’m not sure which side you’re really on!”

“Can I say I’m on your side, even if you didn’t pick me?”

Was he flirting to distract her, or because he meant it?

She wasn’t sure which one was the more frightening thought, actually.

“Why are you like this?” she huffed, drawing him into the third floor corridor, into a darkened nook where she’d often caught lovebirds exchanging tonsils in the past. “I can’t figure you out. You spend years hating on me, and then this last year you’re all…all…” She waved her hands at him. “This! Charming and smooth, helpful even.”

He pursed his lips, drawing her attention to their perfection. Like his hands, his mouth was made for extraordinary things… Her lips tingled as the surprising thought crossed her mind of what his kiss might taste like.

“I never actually hated on you,” he admitted. “Misdirection is a useful tool. And some of us Slytherins aren’t actually zombies with black holes for hearts and an insatiable desire for global domination, you know. In general, we can be quite charming and smooth, and most extraordinarily helpful–” He gave her a rather pointed look. “–when it’s in our interest.”

“I…I’m with Harry,” she lied automatically, seeking to draw that cloak of protection around her from the dare in his eyes.

He stepped closer to her, a causal adjustment that left her pressed against the wall when she attempted to put space between them.

“You’re fibbing to me again, Ginevra. But even so…I don’t see him here.”

“I’m–”

“Always running after him, hoping he’ll give you a sniff of his time and interest.”

That got her back up.

“That’s not true anymore!”

“Isn’t it?” he insisted, never raising his voice above that low and confident, insidious whisper. “Tell me you didn’t run away the last time we hit this same wall then, because you knew it was going to force you to confront some ugly things about your boy hero. Tell me you’re not wanting to rabbit right now for the same reason.”

She opened her mouth, wanting this fight with all her soul…but it never came. There was no fire in her mouth, and no denials or refusals to listen to him tear down her childhood dreams one brick at a time. Not anymore.

-Because he was right. Again.

Even with Harry gone, despite the fact he’d hurt her so callously with his rejection after she’d given him the most important moment of her young life, a childish, idiotic side of her still wanted to run to his side and assure him that he wasn’t alone anymore. That little girl with the big fancy just wanted to cuddle the abused orphan who’d saved them all by some fluke of ancient magic and a heart of gold, and tell him he wasn’t going to stand against the darkness on his own ever again. But the fact was that if Harry had actually wanted her to be his shield maiden, like in the ancient tales, he’d have taken her along with him when he’d disappeared in August. He’d have never dumped her in June. He’d have kept her as close as Hermione, relied upon her strength to support him in his time of need as he did Ron.

He hadn’t done any of that, though. Instead, he’d leaned upon her brother for help…and another witch.

That wasn’t to say Ginny resented Ron or Hermione for winning Harry’s eternal friendship, as they’d deserved a spot at his side, but there were times she wished she’d been included in that circle, too. As Blaise had so spectacularly pointed out last year, she wasn’t friend ‘enough’ as far as that trio was concerned, and none of them respected her as their equal.

She dashed at the hateful tears that filled her eyes.

“I hate you sometimes,” she hissed at him.

He sighed and with a slow, careful hand, wiped the tears from her cheeks.

“Misdirection.” He tilted her chin up so they were eye-to-eye. “I’m not the only one who uses that tool to keep others at bay, Red.”

“I don’t…I’m not…”

“Ready, I know,” he gently agreed and released her. “We’ll start as friends then, and see where it goes.”

Giving her space allowed her to breathe, to think. Her nerves were a wreck; she was primed for action like she would be before a battle. Her heart was a war drum in her chest and her hands shook with the palsy of an unwanted attraction.

“Apology accepted,” he told her and inched backwards, towards the landing so he could give her the time she so desperately needed to work things out in her head…and heart. “Friends don't hold grudges, right?”

No, they didn’t.

“You’ll have to teach me,” he said with a wry smile. “Seems I’m terrible at keeping friends this year. They’ve mostly abandoned me, even Malfoy…and he’s on everyone’s shit list.”

“It’s your deplorable personality,” she called back, feeling a bit more even keeled with him several feet away and retreating.

He laughed.

“You may be right.”

By the time he’d turned and headed away, Ginny had regained some of her confidence.

Friends.

Maybe she could do that with a Slytherin.

Maybe.

* * *

It was two weeks later that Ginny approached Zabini again, after their agreement to try for a friendship had been made. She was taking the initiative this time, since he’d been the one to suggest such a wild idea in the first place.

“Can I show you something later?” she offered.

Those dark, mysterious eyes snapped to her, curious intelligence weighing the intent and sincerity of her proposal.

“What time and where?”

Ginny let out the tiny breath she’d unconsciously held.

“Astronomy Tower, eleven o’clock. We’ll meet at the stairs leading down to the dungeon from the Entrance Hall.”

“That’s past curfew…and a forbidden area without authorization.”

She stood and gave him her infamous Weasley wink.

“Trust me.”

He nodded his assent and she was off to continue her own studies for the few hours between now and then. Inside her satchel, she patted the closed Marauder’s Map, Harry’s final gift to her this last summer, before all hell had broken loose at Bill’s wedding. At the time, he’d said he wouldn’t need it again, and she’d understood his unspoken declaration of intended to go it alone as he’d handed it to her. It was his apology for mistreating her so badly.

She’d taken it, but hadn’t fully forgiven him at the time.

In all honestly, she still struggled with that.

This year, though, while living under Snape, Harry’s kind offer had been put to frequent and good use for the Order’s rebellion inside the castle. It was almost enough for her to finally give Potter a pass.

Tonight, the map would see a different kind of troublemaking.

* * *

“I can’t believe something this complex was invented by a group of teenagers no older than we are now,” Zabini said, turning over and over the Marauder’s Map and studying it by the moonlight. “It’s an ambitious piece of magic.”

He handed the map back to her.

“I’d expect something like this from Slytherins, not Gryffindors, to be fair.”

Ginny shrugged.

“You’ve met my brothers, right? Fred and George, the kings of all pranksters.”

“Point taken.”

After rechecking the map to assure they were undetected by the staff, Ginny left it open on her lap as she and Zabini sat side by side in silence for a long while and looked out at the midnight sky with its twinkling stars. It was cold in the tower this high up, especially in mid-January, but Ginny had cast a warming charm about them that held up even against the chill breezes blowing in through the open tower’s sides.

“What did you want me to see?” he finally asked, and she could feel his dark gaze assessing her profile, “aside from how the moonlight does you no justice.”

She gasped at the insult and side-eye glared at him.

“You’re a creature of the light,” he explained quickly, before she took further offence. “The sun loves you. It makes your hair shine like spun red gold. The moonlight can’t compare. It dulls you out, keeps you from sparkling.”

Now she was gaping for an entirely different reason as his strangely romantic sentiment did things to her insides that should be illegal.

“Did…did you just compliment me in some weird Slytherin manner?”

His lips twitched with amusement.

“I thought girls liked poetic-sounding admiration from boys.”

She huffed, trying to get her heart back under control; it was beating faster than a pair of Flooper’s wings.

“Only if we’re being wooed by them,” she replied in an off-hand manner.

“Wooed?” He sounded legitimately inspired by the thought. “Is that what you’d like, Ginevra, to be courted?”

The heat to her face was like a furnace on full-blast.

Was he implying he’d give such a thing a whirl if she was favourable? He’d certainly made it clear that what he wanted from her started at friends. Where it ended would be up to her.

Where did she want it to go?

“I suppose, someday.”

He hazarded a glance at her. “And Potter?”

“You were right,” she finally admitted, although it killed her to do it. She’d spent the last fourteen days thinking hard about everything he’d ever said about her relationship with Harry…and she concluded that he’d been right. Whatever had evolved between her and Potter had existed because she’d run after him and made herself accessible, but the hard fact was they’d only ever been fair-weather friends, not real ones, as Blaise had pointed out. “I am finally tired of running. It’s time to stop chasing that Snitch.”

“Ah.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m in the market for something new, though.”

“I see.”

“You and me… We’re just friends, right?”

“Right.”

“New friends.”

“Working on it.”

“You’re very accommodating.”

He shrugged. “I try to be for the right people.”

The giggle erupted from her mouth, despite her best attempts to keep a straight face.

“Seriously, I just thought you deserved a reward for risking your neck for me a few times now. Think of it as my way of saying thanks,” she told him in answer to his original question. “Besides, when’s the last time you actually just stopped running and breathed in the night air, and didn’t worry?”

He tilted his head as if to say, “a long time”.

“Yeah, me, too,” she admitted. “So, even if it makes me ugly, I’m going to enjoy the moonlight while I can, because who knows what tomorrow will bring?”

Zabini was silent at her side for a long while after that. They each stared at the stars in personal contemplation, watching as they occasionally fell from the heavens in a flash that disappeared almost as soon as it was spotted, and they watched the moon crawl across the expanse of midnight blue until it reached the horizon.

Only then, after a quick check at the map, did they finally decide the risk was becoming too great to continue and called it a night. They left the Astronomy Tower the same way they’d arrived.

As she turned to leave him back at the dungeon stairs in the Entrance Hall, he stopped her with the strangest comment.

“Hey, Red?”

“Yeah?”

“…I never said the moonlight made you ugly. Nothing can do that.”

He was gone in a quick blur of black robes before she could react to that comment.

Everything changed between them after that, and slowly, Ginny’s former dreams of green eyes and messy mahogany hair disappeared, replaced by fantasies of a sinful nature, featuring a tall, icy boy with perfect hands and a wicked serpent’s smile.


	11. February, 1998

* * *

**February, 1998**

Being a Prefect on Valentine’s night sucked, usually, with all of the hidden alcoves and nooks in the castle taken up by amorous couples seeking a grope in the shadows. It inevitably led to detentions, and occasionally a trip to the Hospital Wing for an emergency contraceptive potion.

This year, it was eerie. The hallways were as empty, cold, and quiet as if a Dementor had passed through them. It seemed Snape’s warnings at dinner had been taken to heart by the remaining students in the school. No one dared a ten o’clock stroll, as curfew had been set for eight. Only the Prefects, the Head students, and Filch was out and about, and according to the Marauder’s Map, the caretaker was retiring with his cat to his quarters, probably for another night of whisky pickling.

Hurrying through her rounds in record time, she made her way down into the basement, pretending to do a final sweep. Instead, she found the broken bust inset into the wall that Zabini had told her about, and turned it just so to open one of the three ‘Unexplored passage’ areas on the map. He’d assured her it led out to the Quidditch pitch where, according to the map, he already sat, awaiting her.

Ginny scrambled through the narrow passage, feeling a tad claustrophobic and guided only by the _Lumos_ on her wand and the map. The passage was twisty, but eventually, it came to the outer wall of the castle. Ginny opened the stone door by pulling a chain handle that looked well-used by dozens of students sneaking out this way for centuries under the noses of the staff. The side of the stone wall slid away and an opening appeared that led out directly onto the grass.

A quick Disillusionment charm to hide her presence except from the most discerning eye, and she was off, hurrying across the field to the pitch, and then up the Slytherin side stairs to their tower. She was winded by the time she stepped out and found Zabini there, lounging on a bench overlooking the pitch.

His grin was bright in the moonless night, a beacon for her to follow to him.

“That much out of shape, Red? It hasn’t been that long since Quidditch practice was cancelled.”

“I work out, I’ll have you know,” she shot back and slumped down onto the bench beside him, refolding the map. “But it’s still a lot of steps to get up here.” She paused as she noted the broom slumped against the row of benches and tossed him a sour look. “Cheater.”

He chuckled and the sound did much to warm her inside and out…especially her chilled cheeks and fingertips. She’d forgotten her gloves. The warming charm Zabini had cast around the tower was working to keep her teeth from chattering, at least.

“It’s not cheating, love,” he countered. “It’s Slytherin practicality.”

The endearment he used didn’t escape her notice.

Shoving the Marauder’s Map into her coat pocket and dashing out her wand’s light, she leaned back on the bench at his side. They sat for a few minutes in comfortable silence as she regained her breath.

“Rounds were quiet, didn’t catch anyone out,” she told him, as much to fill the space as to quell her nervousness at being this close to him again. Butterflies turned over in her belly whenever their arms brushed.

It had become a habit over the past month that they’d sneak around and closet themselves away in some empty classroom or corridor to scheme of ways to get at the Carrows or to discuss how to protect the younger years from the professors’ cruelty. Sometimes, they’d even use those moments just talk about themselves and their feelings about what was happening to their world. It was especially during these times that she found Zabini’s sarcasm to be more amusing, less suspicious, and his cunning to be downright admirable. He was, she’d discovered over the last four weeks, a dangerous combination of mischievous, sophisticated, and handsome.

If anyone had told her this same time last year that she’d become somewhat close with Blaise Zabini, she’d have laughed her fool head right off. Knowing him as she did now, though, made it apparent that she’d let House prejudice stand in the way of far too much in her short life.

“I’m rule-breaking tonight,” he teased. “Suppose you’ll have to report me.”

“Nah, I’d rather you owe me a favour instead,” she joked.

She could feel his eyes slide over her from head to toe, considering.

“A favour, hmm?” he asked, and his tone as husky with interest. “What would you want?”

It took Ginny a moment to realise his flirtations this time weren’t feigned.

Her mouth went dry.

“What would you give?” she countered, feeling reckless.

His lids lowered, the dark, sooty lashes brushing his cheeks.

“Anything you want.”

“Anything?” she asked, and it sounded more like a plea, less a question.

“Mmm.”

A more perfect opening couldn’t be asked for…

“It’s Valentine’s Day.”

“Mmm.”

He wasn’t going to make this easy, was he?

Hell, she wasn’t sure how to do this, either. With Michael Cormer or Dean Thomas, and even Harry, she hadn’t actually taken the lead when it came to the sex stuff.

“Chocolate?”

That seemed a safe request, and it was a highly coveted treat at the castle this year, as Snape had come down on the house-elves in the kitchen about serving up the sweets and Hogsmeade trips had been cancelled.

Zabini’s smile bloomed.

“You sure that’s what you want, some Baci?” he asked.

She shrugged. Why not? It was an innocent enough request, and she loved that particular chocolate bon-bon import from Italy that Honeydukes had always carried. The stuff was downright addictive, and the cute predictions on the inside wrapper were a fun game.

“Yeah, alright. I love that kind. I’ll take a cauldron full of Baci.”

His lips twitched with amusement.

“Good.”

Before she could move, he’d leaned over, tilted his head and kissed her mouth. It was slow and oh-so-delicious. His lips were soft and plump, gently sucking on hers, licking and tasting as if he was a kid in the candy shop, sampling her every treat like it was the most delicious treasure. At first, Ginny had been taken aback, but then he’d pressed a bit more insistently and her toes curled even as she melted. Everything went fuzzy with pleasure.

“You know ‘baci’ means ‘kisses’ in Italian,” he whispered against her mouth as he nipped at her bottom lip.

“Does it?” she asked on a sigh as he teased her with luscious kisses that made her warm all the way to her soul. “How clever. I do so love your native tongue.”

“Mmm, I thought so, too. Want more?”

She grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him forwards, brushing her nose against his.

“Yes, please. Give me the full Honeydukes tour of foreign imports!”

He laughed, and then he swooped in and kissed her again.

It was the sweetest Valentine’s Day Ginny had ever celebrated.


	12. March, 1998

* * *

**March, 1998**

Things progressed quickly between them after their liaison in the Quidditch stands.

What had begun as stolen kisses and longing embraces in dark corners had invariably led to other, more intimate types of exploration behind curtained nooks and in empty classrooms. To her delight, Zabini proved to be a good student when it came to sensuality and pleasuring his partner; Ginny had never enjoyed so much foreplay in her life.

Funny how only six weeks prior, her lusty Slytherin had actually been a sexual innocent, far too discerning to take up with ‘just any witch’, according to him. He’d chosen her to guide him through these important coming-of-age rituals, trusting her to introduce him to each type of pleasure. Ginny felt the weight of that responsibility with every touch.

They hadn’t yet enjoyed actual intercourse, true, but they were fast working their way towards that goal. It seemed Blaise had picked her for the honour of being his first lover. To say the thought made her nervous was an understatement. Sure, she’d played with Michael and Dean, but Harry had been the one the take her virginity, and it had only been the one time and quickly over. Self-exploration since had gotten her off nicely, but it wasn’t the same. And Percy’s dirty magazines were more visual, less instructive. Technically, she’d been celibate for almost nine months and hadn’t had enough experimentation to be confident in her skill.

What if she made the experience bad for Blaise?

They said a person’s first sexual encounter set the standard for all of the future enjoyment of the act. She could, literally, turn him off of sex if it was terrible.

Ridiculous though the thought may be, the pressure was a bit much, honestly. With each day, she grew more anxiety-prone, especially as there was no one to talk to about her fears and concerns. Hermione and Luna were gone. The few female friends she had had either not returned to school this year or were too much acquaintance to trust with her innermost thoughts and feelings. And her mother was out of the question. Teachers, too.

Where did a girl go for such advice, given such a situation?

It turned out speaking to her first real friend—her _best_ friend—had solved the problem for her.

“You literally cannot make it bad for me,” Blaise told her, as earnest as he’d ever been with her on the subject. A moment later, he retracted that statement. “Unless, of course, you do bring a whip. I’ll compromise on the black leather, but flogging isn’t my thing, love.”

Just how much of that afternoon’s weird conversation in the Hospital Wing did he actually remember, she wondered?

She transfigured the book in Zabini’s hand into a replica of one of Percy’s naughty magazines, from memory. Then she turned to page twelve and showed it to him. “I would like us to do that.” She pointed to the centerfold couple, who were engaged in a rather gymnastic display of sex. “What do you think?”

His eyebrows shot high on his forehead.

A bead of sweat appeared above his upper lip.

“I definitely think we should,” he agreed, awed by the idea. “I’ll have to take a Stamina potion in advance, maybe a Muscle-Stretching potion, too…and definitely a Reviving potion after.”

Ginny cracked her knuckles. Brewing illicit potions was one of her secret skills, thanks to the twins’ influence.

“Leave it to me.”


	13. April, 1998

* * *

**April, 1998**

On a cool, clear night in April, Ginny and Blaise met up in the Room of Requirement and finally made love, and his first time had been wonderful for them both. So had their second and third times, spaced a few hours apart. Page twelve had been checked off their list, too.

Ginny had felt not only accomplished and relieved in the afters, but utterly sated and well-loved.

After that, there had been a lot of running going on between her and Blaise…at each other’s sides and towards each other at every opportunity. Insatiable and blindly infatuated, would be a more precise way to describe their behaviour during those weeks.

And what had made it so special was that she’d gone that marathon mile all with her best friend.


	14. May, 1998

* * *

**May, 1998**

On the first day in May, the war finally opened the grand doors of the Entrance Hall and spilled into their lives, proclaiming its arrival. Ginny had been knocked for a six by a pale and shaky Harry reaching for her as if the last year of separation had never been.

Zabini had watched her reunion with Harry from afar, noting the ‘Chosen One’s’ reverent touches through Ginny’s hair and to her person as he looked upon her with something akin to awe. He’d witnessed the abrupt kiss the ‘Boy Hero’ had planted on her mouth to the sound of nearby cheering from their family and friends.

That she hadn’t seen that move coming in time to dodge it had been inconsequential, really.

Blaise had turned and silently slunk off to the dungeons with the rest of the Slytherins after that. Whether or not he’d broken the Slytherin vow to fight or not, Ginny didn’t know as she hadn’t had an opportunity to run after him to explain or beg forgiveness and understanding as Voldemort’s army hadn’t allowed her the reprieve.

The fighting had been fierce, prolonged. Every inch of Hogwarts ground had been taken at high cost by the enemy. There had been chaos and death at every turn. Death Eaters, Snatchers, spiders, dementors, and giants had clashed with Hogwarts staff and students, Order members, a remaining contingent of loyal Aurors, stone knights, a lone hippogriff, thestrals, centaurs, goblins, house-elves, Beauxbatons Academy witches, Viktor Krum’s friends from Durmstrang, and the dragonets Charlie had brought in from Romania. Even the Giant Squid had stretched up his long tentacles whenever evil passed over his lake and grabbed hold where he could, slamming bodies into the water and dragging them down into a watery grave. Fires blazed out of control, tearing down the Quidditch pitch and burning dormitories to ash, doors were magically ripped from hinges, and entire sections of ancient stone set into walls and ceilings for a thousand years collapsed under continual spell bombardment. Recognizing friend from foe during the worst of it was challenging.

Ginny had been put in charge of a small group of fighters at the start, whom she ordered to keep the stairwells clear of the enemy. She’d established a two-by-two pattern on every landing on the Great Staircase; one defender would cast Protego continuously, and the other would cast a barrage of offensive spells at anyone misfortunate enough to be a Voldemort loyalist. The strategy worked brilliantly to keep the stairs mostly clear, forcing back anything that couldn’t fly or Disapparate. If the black-hearted invaders wanted to move up into the castle to take the higher ground, they’d have to do it another way.

She searched for Blaise in between corridor and stairwell runs, praying not to find his body lying amidst the wreckage, but there had been no sign of him anywhere she’d looked. For hours, she’d kept a watchful eye out for him.

At one point in the middle of the battle, there had been despair and a sense of hopelessness when Harry had been announced dead…then renewed hope when it had become apparent he’d used Slytherin tricks against the Dark Army, feigning his death.

…And then suddenly Voldemort was gone.

An awed silence had followed the old man’s toppling to the ground, hoisted into the skeletal hands of Death by his own _Avada_. It took long moments before anyone could believe it that simple a thing.

Cheering erupted, and that joyous sound signaled the official end of the war.

On the morning of May the second, when she’d limped into the bright dawn exhausted, but among the victorious survivors, Ginny had felt a soul-deep relief, knowing she’d done what she’d been fated to do: help Harry Potter win against the adversary a second time. 

She went in search of Blaise then, turning over the whole castle to do so. Her path led her downward into the dungeons first. There, she was dismayed to find the Slytherin common room doors blasted open by a powerful force. The furniture inside had been turned over, as if a pitched battle had been had in the midst of the ornately decorated, cavernous room. There was a spider-webbed crack in the large glass window that held back the might of the Black Lake, patched with a competent barrier spell to keep it from expanding. Someone had been foolish in their wild spell casting.

Near that same crack, she noted the blackened silhouette of a person etched into the glass and on the floor before it, a pile of ashes was all that remained of some poor soul.

That’s when Ginny began to panic.

She screamed for Blaise, running down into both dormitories and doing a room-by-room search. In one of the last rooms on the bottom-most floor of the Slytherin's women's dorms, she found various bodies wearing silver and green ties; some she recognized, but most she didn’t, and all were still warm, indicating they'd died only minutes before she'd entered. Their expressions were set in the terror of their final moments, but their bodies had been strangely unblemished. It was obvious someone had executed them using the worst of the Unforgivable curses.

Was this the revenge Blaise had once mentioned people on her side might try to enact upon his, should they win the day? But these were innocent children, the youngest a first year! She couldn't believe it.

...Didn't want to.

Yet, the truth lay before her, stark and undeniable: the war had made them all savage, but for some, their monstrous sides had only truly emerged after the Dark Lord's demise, fueled by the confidence of their superior win. 

Suddenly, she felt ten years older, and fifty years sadder...and that much more determined to ensure the world knew about this defiling act. Someone was going to pay for it, even if she had to drag them in front of the Wizengamot herself! This was not the Order's way!

No more kid's table shit for her. No more being benched.

As soon as her life was resettled and the world picked up and moved on, she was finishing her schooling and then applying for the Auror program. She loved Quidditch and had once dreamed of flying with the Holyhead Harpies, maybe with Harry acting as coach, but she now knew those were a child's fantasy wishes. She more than had what it would take to be a damned good covert detective, between her potion's abilities, her sneak-thief spells, and her unique Weasley training. All that Peeves-like pranking she'd done over the years was nothing compared to the damage she could really do to the bad guys, if she put her mind to it, and she rather liked the idea of _being_ a white knight in her own right.

As she looked down at the small, empty bodies at her feet, she knew there would definitely be a need in the Aurors for a woman with her talents, as well.

But for now, there was one dark wizard in particular she had to find... 

All the remainder of that day and night, she did an exhaustive search for Blaise, finding horrors that she knew would haunt her for years to come among the debris, but for all her determined hunting and turning over rock, she never did find him.

Instead, he found her.


	15. EPILOGUE

* * *

**EPILOGUE**

“Good job, Red. Congratulations on the win.”

Ginny stopped in her rush through St. Mungo’s to find Blaise standing not five feet away from her, his right arm in a sling supporting his shoulder.

“The stairwell brigade,” he said with an approving nod. “I’ve always told you strategy was your strength. No second sting shit for you in the next war, that’s for sure.”

The owl’d letter he’d sent her fluttered to the floor as her feet dragged their way over to her lover, still unsure if she was hallucinating him or not. There hadn’t been much sleep over the last five days since she’d left Hogwarts for home. While Charlie and Bill had handled Fred’s funeral arrangements, since her parents and George were inconsolable and unable to help, it had been up to her, Ron, and Percy to cook and clean up the house, to ensure their parents and the remaining twin bathed daily and ate to keep up their strength. It was still touch-and-go with George, although her parents were coming around finally. Everyone was so…emotionally thin, though, frail in a way they’d never been before and that scared her.

She’d barely been holding it together, herself…until his owl had arrived at her window this morning.

“What…what did you do?” she asked, indicating his arm, her voice as disconnected as her emotions just then. One look at him standing there, alive and as icy nonchalant as ever and she’d overloaded, fried out her brain. “Why didn’t they use Skele-Gro on it?”

He smirked and removed the sling, tossing it aside. “Just a sprain, really. Nothing serious. I’ll live,” he assured her while rubbing at his stiff shoulder joint. “Besides, the last time I took that god-awful stuff, I dreamed about you and this vicious black leather whip-”

She slapped him hard before he could finish his sentence, careful not to hit his lips and damage them.

Then, she threw herself at him and kissed him on that same mouth as if she would die if she didn’t.

Then, she stepped back and slapped him again, just to make her point.

“You rotten fink, I thought you were pushing daisies!” Ginny seethed, wanting to plant her hard fist into Zabini’s sexy face. “For five days I’ve been mourning you, you lousy, drama-loving snake! You’ve been officially declared one of the fallen!”

He rubbed at the jaw where the flat of her hand had turned the skin a nice rosy colour.

“Vicious vixen,” he grumbled, “I stayed and fought for you, despite the vow, and this is the thanks I get? I’ll probably die for it soon, you realize. You should be nicer to me.”

Oh, so that’s how he wanted to play it, eh?

“Start talking, Zabini,” she warned him and pointed to an imaginary watch on her wrist. “Clock’s ticking down.”

He winced. “See, this is the side of you that’s mean. I accept her, but sometimes she scares me.”

She merely raised one eyebrow, silently telling him to get on with it or she’d show him real terror. He had, after all, gifted the same to her when she’d thought him lost forever.

“I…I told you I would go to Italy.”

That was his excuse? He’d run away to avoid prison?

“You really thought you’d be arrested?”

“Probably, but that wasn’t why I went. I told you why, if you’ll think on it.”

She tried to recall that conversation from last year, before their scrapping had turned into flirting…

_“Are you afraid you’re going to be arrested if the Dark Lord loses?”_

_“Not particularly, because I have a plan…”_

He had said that, hadn’t he?

_“…Either way, I only keep my head if I have leverage, which is something I can only get in Italy.”_

Her hand fell to her side.

Damn Slytherin machinations!

Okay, _to be fair_ , he’d only mentioned the idea once in conversation—months ago.

And to be fair, _then_ he’d made it seem as if he was running home to Mama Zabini to hide, because either outcome of the war would end badly for him.

Then, _also,_ he’d insinuated it wouldn’t be his choice to go, but a factor of survival.

Still…

“What leverage did you get from Mama Spider-Queen’s home?” she demanded, drumming her fingernails against the side of her leg to keep from throwing herself into his arms and forgiving him everything. She’d done that too often with Harry and look where that had gotten her! “Something worth it, I hope.”

His evil, little smirk made her heart glow.

“Of course.”

“Well, are you going to tell me?” she demanded, when he wasn’t forthcoming with any information. “Or am I going to grow old here guessing?”

“I’ll tell you my darkest secrets if you tell me yours…friend.”

She held her fist up and wagged it at him.

“I’ll show you what friends do to each other if you keep that shit up, Zabini!”

With a happy grin, he gathered her up in his arms, wincing at the pressure it put on his injury. “Tell you what, Red, you can practice your set of particularly interesting Weasley talents on me to get me to give up the truth of the matter. We'll consider it practice for when you eventually decide to go into the Auror program with me, because it's clear that's where you're really meant to be, love, and we've already established I run alongside you at every chance I get."

Huh.

What do you know, he really did see and accept her, after all. Always had.

"And then?" she dared ask.

 _"Then,_ I’ll race you for the nearest bed, because at some point, I need to be inside you. It's been too long...and really, I may die at any time, remember.”

Truly, the man was insufferable with his exaggerations.

"You will not."

His face split with a grin. "No, I won't. Didn't cast a single Killing Curse the whole war. Hurrah for me! It sounded good, though, right?"

With a mock sigh, she flung her arms around his neck. “Fine, I suppose I can take it easy on you during the interrogation part, just so I don't exhaust you for the rest,” she playfully agreed, relieved to have finally found the place where she belonged. “But no running. It was never my forte." She wiggled her hips against his erection. "I’m much better at sitting a broom.”

Blaise laughed as Ginny brought their mouths together once more, their heights perfectly matched for everything that came next.

**.**

**~ FIN ~**

**.**


End file.
